Part of A buyer's guide to artificial intelligence in health and care
Can you manage and maintain this product after you adopt it
Support from the vendor
During procurement, you should investigate what support the vendor is offering for ongoing management and maintenance of the product and ask about their post market surveillance plans, plans to monitor the safety of their device after it has been released on the market. This includes asking about:
- features of their managed service
- their approach to product and data pipeline updates
- their plan for mitigating product failure
- their plan for addressing performance drift of the model outside of a margin that is acceptable to you
You should be clear about your organisation’s responsibilities and capabilities in relation to operation and maintenance.
Sending back data to the vendor
You should clarify if the vendor expects your organisation to send back data to support the vendor’s iteration of the model or development of other products. Depending on the product, this could be categorised as a clinical investigation and require separate approval. You will also need to address this in your information governance arrangements.
Decommissioning
Decommissioning is a key final stage of the management and maintenance cycle. You should ensure that suitable plans are in place at the outset.
Last edited: 16 June 2025 4:04 pm